Sandra Belloni — Complete eBook

“Is there any fine distinction between the extremes?”
said Cornelia, in as clear a tone as she could summon.

“I think,” observed Arabella, “that
whatever shows staleness speedily is self-condemned;
and that is the case with slang.”

“And yet it’s to avoid some feeling of
the sort that people employ it,” was Adela’s
remark; and the discussion of this theme dropped lifelessly,
and they walked on as before.

Coming to a halt near the garden gate, Adela tapped
Emilia’s cheek, addressing her: “How
demure she has become!”

“Ah!” went Arabella, “does she know
papa has had a letter from Mr. Pericles, who wrote
from Milan to say that he has made arrangements for
her to enter the Academy there, and will come to fetch
her in a few days?”

Emilia’s wrists crossed below her neck, while
she gave ear.

“To take me away?” she said.

The tragic attitude and outcry, with the mournful
flash of her eyes, might have told Emilia’s
tale.

Adela unwillingly shielded her by interpreting the
scene. “See! she must be a born actress.
They always exaggerate in that style, so that you
would really think she had a mighty passion for Brookfield.”

“Or in it,” suggested Freshfield.

“Or in it!” she laughed assentingly.

Mr. Pole was perceived entering the garden, rubbing
his hands a little too obsequiously to some remark
of the baronet’s, as the critical ladies imagined.
Sir Twickenham’s arm spread out in a sweep; Mr.
Pole’s head nodded. After the ceremony
of the salute, the ladies were informed of Sir Twickenham’s
observation: Sir Twickenham Pryme, a statistical
member of Parliament, a well-preserved half-century
in age, a gentleman in bearing, passably grey-headed,
his whiskers brushed out neatly, as if he knew them
individually and had the exact amount of them collectively
at his fingers’ ends: Sir Twickenham had
said of Mr. Pole’s infant park that if devoted
to mangold-wurzel it would be productive and would
pay: whereas now it was not ornamental and was
waste.

“Sir Twickenham calculates,” said Mr.
Pole, “that we should have a crop of—­eh?”

“The average?” Sir Twickenham asked, on
the evident upward mounting of a sum in his brain.
And then, with a relaxing look upon Cornelia:
“Perhaps you might have fifteen, sixteen, perhaps
for the first year; or, say—­you see, the
exact acreage is unknown to me. Say roughly, ten
thousand sacks the first year.”

“Of what?” inquired Cornelia.

“Mangold-wurzel,” said the baronet.

She gazed about her. Mr. Barrett was gone.

“But, no doubt, you take no interest in such
reckonings?” Sir Twickenham added.

“On the contrary, I take every interest in practical
details.”

Practical men believe this when they hear it from
the lips of gentlewomen, and without philosophically
analyzing the fact that it is because the practical
quality possesses simply the fascination of a form
of strength. Sir Twickenham pursued his details.
Day closed on Brookfield blankly. Nevertheless,
the ladies felt that the situation was now dignified
by tragic feeling, and remembering keenly how they
had been degraded of late, they had a sad enjoyment
of the situation.